I’d been staring at the same spreadsheet displayed on my laptop screen for the past hour. I wasn’t actually reading anything, just zoning out.
I’d just been informed that Willow Creek would be working with Spiked during the weddings from now on. That meant that Tyler had no choice but to start talking to me again at some point; in lieu of recent events, I’d decided to stay. Which meant that I’d accepted my job back as the wedding planner.
Patrick’s death had definitely been a deciding factor in my final decision. The family and the retreat would need me more than ever; but besides all that, Maddie was in high school. She’d be graduating in just a couple years. It made sense to stay. And I wanted to stay.
It was my aunt’s throat clearing that eventually brought me out of my funk and the blue light glaring back at me from the computer screen.
I lifted my chin but kept my eyes level as I waited for her to speak.
“You have a walk-in.” My gaze slowly moved to hers. “She’s waiting at the bar.”
“I don’t have time for that right now.”
Lana made a fist and set it down before me. “No, you don’t. You should be in front of your crystal ball, searching for Rowena, but you’ve chosen to be here. Therefore, you will do what needs to happen here.”
I scowled. “You know very well that I’ve been doing nothing else. I’ve examined that damn ball for hours on end. There’s nothing in there. No Rowena, and no body to be found.” And no Patrick to be seen.
As the resident ghost whisperer, the load of searching him out had been placed over my shoulders. No one, not even Lana, had asked me to look for his spirit. It was possible he’d already returned home to Latharia, but our family’s curse had changed during this lifetime, and what this nightmare entity sought was more than just a dead witch. It wanted our light . . . our souls. And it wanted all of them. If only I could just catch a glimpse of Patty, standing over the grill perhaps or trying to look down the shirt of an unsuspecting female guest—then my heartbeats could settle down just a little.
“There is plenty in there, Wachiwi.”
“All I see when I stare into that ball is my own face looking back at me.”
Lowering her voice, she stated firmly, and with urgency, “This is about more than you.”
I stabbed the desk with a pencil, shattering its tip, before allowing my impatience to speak for me. “Don’t you think I know that?”
I paused long enough to see the hurt wash over her—the stain she couldn’t seem to get to go away, even though she’d been doing her damnedest to rub the pain from her heart. I set down the ruined pencil and stood up. “Look, this isn’t easy for any of us, trying to pretend that his death hasn’t ripped us apart. I haven’t given up. I promise you, Lana, I will figure this out, and I will see whatever it is my mother wants me to see.” Moving so that I was just inches from her, I clasped my hands around her shoulders. “I’m going to save his light, and my mother’s, and I’m not going to let her take what’s left of my son. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to make sure she burns.”
Lana’s stiff expression didn’t budge as I lowered my arms and stepped aside, heading towards the door to go meet with my walk-in.
“It,” she said, causing me to pause in my tracks.
I glanced over my shoulder to see that she hadn’t moved.
“Don’t call it he or she. That thing has never known what it is to be human. To feel what we feel while inside these bodies. It only knows destruction and it feeds from pain. Quit giving it an identity. It doesn’t deserve that much.”
Though she couldn’t see me, I nodded. “You’re absolutely right,” I agreed, and then I made my way out from the office.
I was busy kneading my hands together as I made my way out into the bar area when I nearly walked directly into another female witch. I didn’t notice her face at first—I was too startled by the near collision and distracted by her spiky purple hair.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I immediately spat out. “Wait a minute—Cindy? Is that really you?”
The face of the girl I’d known once upon a time smiled, revealing two rows of extremely white teeth. “Yes, it’s really me.”
“Oh my goddess!” I leaned in for an embrace. “You’re all grown up—I can’t believe it! What—What are you doing here?”
Little Cindy Bernstein. She was one of those rare witches born into a non-magical family, but she was lucky; her loved ones had been more than accepting. Her mother had followed the rumors in her lady’s circle—hairdressers and the like—and had brought her little girl to meet our mother.
I was present the day my mom opened the door to reveal a tiny toe-head of a witch. A white rat cowering at her feet, and her thin, pale arms clutching her mother’s leg.
“Hi,” her mother had said, looking a tiny bit frightened, but more so of rejection than of what our magic encompassed. “I hate to show up unannounced. I—I didn’t know where else to go.”
My mother simply looked down at the little witch, and the familiar next to her who was demonstrating both of their apprehensions. Then, with no more than a nod of the head she welcomed them into our house.
Cindy and Ellie were practically the same age, but I honestly don’t think Ellie ever even knew our little apprentice existed. My sister was a whirlwind even back then and it was all my parents could do to get her to come down from the stars when it was time for dinner.
Cindy pulled away, while hanging on to my forearms, and as she continued to gaze at me, her smile faded. “I wanted to come say how very sorry I was to hear about Patrick. I can’t imagine what you are all going through. Between that and Arianna.”
“Yeah . . . it’s been a little difficult, but we’re coping.”
She dropped my arms, then tightened her expression. “I don’t suppose you’ve gotten any updates on your mom—on her condition?”
I shook my head. “She’s still in a coma.” Then, thinking it over for less than a second, I stated, “But between the goddess, you, and I, it’s not really a coma. She’s sort of gotten herself locked into a—”
“She’s stuck in a spell,” Cindy finished for me.
I wrinkled my forehead. “Yes. How’d you know that?”
“Because she told me.”
I batted my eyes. “What?”
Cindy sighed, then held up her hand. She waved a finger, laced with a black diamond, in front of my eyes. “The wedding wasn’t supposed to be for a few more weeks, and it was supposed to be just her and I and our families—we wanted to keep it simple. But your mother, well, she had other plans in mind.” She sucked in a quick breath and gestured to an empty booth by the window. “Do you think we could sit down. This might take a while.”
* * *
Cindy had left two hours ago. Lana had gone off into the woods, and my father was fishing yet again. Ellie had been keeping to herself a lot lately, and I didn’t want to disturb her. So, it was just me . . . and all my thoughts.
“Arianna has come to me,” Cindy had said. “A circle inside a circle. On the night of the Enrapture I will wed under the tree, and from there you will see. This is what she showed me.”
A procession of undefined clues, a puzzle spread out over a long table—none of the pieces seeming to fit together. I continued to pace before the black bowl of water in my parent’s house, replaying Cindy’s words and trying to figure out why my mother had chosen to reach out to her instead of me. Cindy had attributed it to a great debt. She’d always felt like she owed our family something since my mother had been there so much for her in her youth. A spell based on emotion . . . it was possible.
I centered myself over the scrying bowl, knowing there was one other soul who might know something. Someone who could potentially communicate with the ever-changing wind, who could help me see what I was, so far, blinded to. In attempt to focus, I pulled my hands away from where they were fitted against my skull and looked down.
My breath was shaky, as were my words, but still I whispered, “I know you’re in there and I know you’re here.” I had been feeling his presence ever since that night in the lake. The night he saved me.
My throat tightened and my temples pulsated as the bowl of water remained still. My breath thickened through my nostrils and I refused to move.
“I am sorry. I—I . . . There is nothing I can say or do to undo what I have done.” My voice cracked and a hot tear rolled down my cheek. “I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have danced away. I shouldn’t have believed you were gone. Please, Son, I need your help.”
I wiped at the moisture on my face, unwilling to look away from the bowl. The room was far too still, too quiet. I was just beginning to believe that I’d given away all my chances when the water rippled.
A familiar scent, lost to me many moons ago, filled the air as a face began to manifest. It was a smell that nearly tore my heart in two. One of dirt, of morning dew, and of the river.
I held my breath, clasping my hands around my mouth. If anyone could direct me towards the path I was seeking, it would be this soul, because this was the soul who had once been inside me.
Just as the lines of the face were beginning to fill in—a reflection took over the water—of a dark cloud forming near the ceiling, and he was once more erased from me. My lips quivered as I stepped back. As the cloud fell, lightning filled the body of it, and I reformed my trembling expression into a fierce scowl. I raised my wand into the air because I couldn’t show this thing fear anymore. Weakness meant more murder.
The same sick laughter I’d been hearing for weeks reverberated around my shoulders and the water within the bowl began rippling once more—the beast taking over.
Without a moment’s deliberation, I shouted into the water, “What is your game? Who do you claim to be?”
The imposter faded away, replacing its image with a vision of Rowena, staring out over the lost coast. Into the ocean.
“You are not her! You cannot fool me any longer!”
A low gurgle mutated into a laugh, then oozed from all corners of the house. It seeped down to the floor and crawled up around my naked ankles until it completely surrounded me.
“It will be the tastiest . . . Your son’s light.”
Careful not to give the monster what it wanted, I balled my hands into fists. My wand tightening in my grip.
“You’ve taken your last witch and you will not have my son. He is too strong and too smart; you will never find him.”
“You’re wrong. I will have your mother’s light, your cousin’s, yours, and your son’s; and when I’m through with all that, I will take all the light from all the remaining witches.” As it spoke, the image of a candle burning took shape inside the bowl.
I refused to let this entity see my hesitance, my frustration. The candle depicted in the scene before me blew out, and the demon’s laughter grew loud again as it whispered in my ear, “He is mine.”
“No,” I growled. After lifetimes of torture, my voice finally gained the strength it needed to be taken seriously. “NO! You sick, twisted creature—you will not take him away again!” Then I slapped the water bowl with so much force that it flew across the room, the water spilling all over the carpet.
The electricity made from the wretched spirit immediately dissipated, as did the laughter. I lingered, staring at the now upside-down bowl. My heart was racing, my teeth grinding. It wasn’t until I moved, inching towards the bowl, that I said to it, wherever it was lurking, “All you’ve done is insure your demise. You’ve messed with the wrong family, the wrong witches.”
I thought about leaving the bowl empty. I even thought about chucking it far into the woods, but it wasn’t like getting rid of it would erase this darkness. After a few heated moments, I headed out from the house and towards the lake to fill it up once more. If anything, the healing waters would be able to cleanse any unnatural energy left behind.
I’d just sunken my bare toes into the lake, the new sundress I’d bought the other day gripped in my hand to keep it from getting too wet, and I was about to submerge the bowl in the water, purify it, when I heard someone walking up from behind.
From the shuffle, I thought perhaps it was my father, and turned, ready to explain why I was messing with my mother’s bowl. When I searched over my shoulders, however, I found it wasn’t my father at all. Although it was a male presence who had found me.
“Tyler,” I said, backing my wet feet out of the lake and onto the soft grass. My toes were already dirty.
My husband, his hands resting in the pockets of his fitted pants, just stood there, his gaze rested over the surface of the lake.
“Are you here to work in the kitchen?” I asked.
He’d delayed his restaurant opening by about a month because of Patty’s passing. Him and Joe and their employ had all stepped up, helping in the kitchen at The Dewdrop until we could find a permanent replacement. Though we all knew it would never be the same. The cinnamon rolls were already less sweet.
Tyler shook his head stiffly, refusing to look my way.
“Did you drop Maddie off? I didn’t think she was working tonight, but—”
“You left us.”
I exhaled a rickety breath, and fumbling with the bowl in my hands, I nodded. “I did do that. I wish I could undo it.”
The color of his face was deepening. My own cheeks burned just looking at him.
“And now you’ve decided to stay?” His tone was stiff.
“Yes.”
Finally, he moved his gaze onto mine. He spit out his next words as though they were nails. “I have spent years trying to hate you. For leaving, for ignoring his presence. For deserting our daughter. I have done nothing more than imagine seeing your face again and the words I would say to it.”
The tears I had come to know all too well over the past month had returned, and my chin was trembling. “Tyler, I—”
Pointing a finger at my face, he cut me off with his sharp tongue. “No Olivia! It is not your turn, not yet!” He pursed his lips together, stuffing his hand back into his pocket and looking a bit like a package that was sealed far too tight. “All I want to do is hate you! Honestly, I wished for years it was you instead of him. And then I see you and I—” He zipped his mouth shut, cutting himself off. The pain radiating from him was palpable.
I stopped myself from saying anything, sealing the words against my tongue—that I was so sorry. That I still loved him and Maddie, and that I knew our son was still alive. That running was cowardly and all I wanted now was to stay here. Be with my family again. Lay on the couch with him and Maddie and eat shitty frozen pizza on Sunday nights. Instead, I stood there, crying and letting him vent his frustrations.
His face was now beginning to glisten with tears as he took a step back from where he’d been standing. Before he turned away and left me down by the edge of that lake in pieces, he whispered down to me, “You tore up my heart, Olivia. You wrecked me.”